Miss C Graves v Chestnut Homecare Ltd — 2022

The tribunal sat at Leeds before Employment Judge Jones with Mr D Crowe and Ms G Fleming as members and gave a unanimous judgment. Miss Graves worked for Chestnut Homecare Ltd from 25 November 2020 until she resigned verbally on 29 December 2020 and confirmed that resignation by email on 30 December 2020. She reported concerns to the CQC on 1 January 2021. The tribunal dismissed the complaint that she had been constructively unfairly dismissed for having made protected disclosures.

On the protected-disclosure issues, the tribunal found that only two matters were qualifying disclosures: the email about pills found on the floor and the complaint about MAR charts being signed incorrectly. The other alleged disclosures, including the alleged theft of a ring and the later handbag allegation, were not accepted as qualifying disclosures because the claimant's belief was not reasonable or the information lacked sufficient factual content. The tribunal also rejected several of the alleged disclosures as not proved at all.

The constructive-dismissal complaint failed because the tribunal found no breach of the implied term of trust and confidence. It accepted that the respondent followed up the MAR-chart issue by speaking to Miranda, requiring retraining and reminding staff of the correct procedure, and it accepted that the theft allegation was investigated by speaking to the service user and making enquiries of the CQC and police helplines. The tribunal held that the respondent's conduct did not objectively destroy or seriously undermine trust and confidence.

The disability discrimination claims also failed. The tribunal accepted that the claimant had PTSD, anxiety, depression and social phobia, and separately found that dyslexia was a disability, but held that the respondent had not been told about the mental-health conditions and was entitled to rely on the claimant's own written assurance that dyslexia would not stop her doing the job. It found no direct discrimination because there was no evidence the complained-of treatment was because of disability, and no reasonable-adjustments claim because the respondent did not know, and could not reasonably have been expected to know, of any particular disadvantage. The holiday pay, notice pay and arrears-of-pay complaints were withdrawn and dismissed upon withdrawal, and no monetary award was made.